Food product launch and positioning in China—Do claims of credence attributes matter?

Abstract

This article aims to empirically investigate the role of claims of credence attributes in the launch of food and drink products using a large dataset of new product development by food companies in China. A multinomial regression model is employed to analyze the association between the type of product launch and the positioning claims adopted by firms. The results provide evidence that claims of credence attributes play an important role in the product launch strategy of firms. Food companies tend to choose the most cost‐effective strategies to launch products with credence attributes. Hence, claims that are seen as most important for consumers are more likely to be engendered for the more costly launch approach. For example, the attribute of food safety is highly important in China and its use is related to launching brand new products which generally is the most costly launch strategy. In contrast, other credence attributes, such as “environmentally sustainable,” are linked to relatively simpler and cheaper strategies, such as new packaging. Given most studies on credence attributes have focused on the consumer side, results of this study fill in the gap of understanding how food suppliers respond to consumer demand for food products with credence attributes.

The role of credence attribute claims in food product launch – a comparative study of New Zealand and Australia

“…Note that “green” attribute claims are found to be more likely to be associated with brand-new products than other launching approaches in the NZ market. However, this finding is not consistent with the results of Yang et al. (2021) who found that the attribute of being environmentally sustainable is more likely to be associated with new packaging in the Chinese market.…”

“…Note that "green" attribute claims are found to be more likely to be associated with brand-new products than other launching approaches in the NZ market. However, this finding is not consistent with the results of Yang et al (2021) who found that the attribute of being environmentally sustainable is more likely to be associated with new packaging in the Chinese market. They state that firms tend to address consumers' concerns about over-packaging by launching products with environmentally-friendly packaging (Rees et al, 2019;Singh and Pandey, 2018); also it is easier and cheaper to focus on environmentally-friendly packaging than investing in developing new products with "green" attributes (Liu and Niyongira, 2017).…”

“…However, launching new products comes with high risk and uncertainty, with many new launches failing to reach sustainable realisation (Lemmerer and Menrad, 2019). Despite the high risk, there has been a significant increase in the number of new launches in the last 20 years, with brand-new products leading the trend, followed by new varieties and product line extensions (Solis, 2016;Yang et al, 2021). Meanwhile, it is noted that the rate of new product failure is found to vary across studies and products (Castellion and Markham, 2013).…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, with the exception of Yang et al (2021) who studied the Chinese market, this study is the first attempt to address the research gap in understanding Credence attribute claims and food product launch the relationship between firms' choices of credence attribute claims and their product launch strategies. Using multinomial logit regression models, the study provides empirical evidence of the associations between product launch approaches and positioning via the use of food claims, in particular, credence attribute claims that have become increasingly of interest for both firms and consumers (Palma et al, 2016), using New Zealand (NZ) and Australia (AU) markets as an example.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, with the exception of Yang et al. (2021) who studied the Chinese market, this study is the first attempt to address the research gap in understanding the relationship between firms' choices of credence attribute claims and their product launch strategies.…”